The following advice was first issued, and is still available, as a published leaflet


 
Sound Advice:
The Care of your Pipe Organ

A pipe organ is a valuable resource...

 
Pipe organs have been used in Christian worship for more than a thousand years. The pipe organ is still unsurpassed as an instrument for leading congregational singing and accompanying church choirs. A pipe organ is both a musical instrument and a refined piece of machinery. Often it will have an architectural case which may be an integral part of the church's furnishings. 

 Well-made pipe organs will give excellent service for many years provided they are properly cared for. It is not uncommon to find pipe organs functioning efficiently after a century or more, with only occasional cleaning and minor repairs. 

 Consequently many churches now contain organs which have already given years of reliable service. Many of these (and some more recent instruments, too) should be carefully preserved, both for their own sake as part of our heritage, and also because they have many more decades of useful service ahead of them. 
 

What is an historic organ?

 
This is a difficult question to answer concisely, but an arbitrary answer might be that an historic organ is one that...
 
- is a good and intact example of its style or period; 

 - incorporates material (eg.pipework) from an earlier instrument of good quality; or 

 - retains an interesting or architecturally distinguished case. 
 

What to do?

 
Like any other piece of machinery a pipe organ requires maintenance from time to time. With a simple mechanical action organ this should involve no more than cleaning, regulation and small repairs. Less frequently (every seventy or eighty years) a more thorough overhaul is needed, when parts may have to be taken back to the organbuilder's workshop for renovation. 

 It is tempting to use these occasions as opportunities to make alterations to the organ. The temptation should be resisted. Like a piece of antique furniture, a pipe organ is easily spoiled by needless changes. Once its integrity is lost it can never be regained. 

 Restoration, not alteration, is nearly always the right policy when dealing with a pipe organ which survives intact and is well made. In order to achieve this, BIOS offers the following general guidelines. 
 

DO

 
  • Make sure you employ an organbuilder with the necessary skills. There are good firms, both national and local, but (inevitably) there are also some unreliable ones. Seek more than one estimate, and make informal enquiries of others for whom your preferred builder has done similar work recently.
  • See what you can find out about the history of your organ. Parish archives and the local history library may be able to help; also the British Organ Archive and the National Pipe Organ Register (contacts through BIOS at the address below).
  • Consider seeking a grant. The Joint Scheme administered on behalf of English Heritage and the Heritage Lottery Fund is making available new resources for restoring historic church organs (for an information pack telephone 020-7973-3434). Other bodies also provide grants for applications which meet their criteria. BIOS does not make grants itself, but can advise on possible sources of funding, requirements and procedures [consult or send for our Grants leaflet].

DON'T

 
  • Make tonal alterations (except to restore original features), transpose pipework or alter mixture compositions.
  • Replace non-standard pedal boards.
  • Replace lever-type swell pedals with balanced swells.
  • Introduce tuning slides, unless your organbuilder and adviser agree that this is the only way to preserve the pipes.
  • Paint interior wood surfaces, making it impossible to distinguish old materials from new.
  • Try to introduce extra console accessories (eg.thumb pistons); this usually involves costly alterations to the organ's internal mechanism, and compromises its integrity.
  • Fix unsightly switches, light fittings, clips or mirrors to the console woodwork.
  • Replace ivory key coverings or stop faces unnecessarily; always reproduce original features, eg. the style and colouring of lettering.
  • Paint over original decoration on front pipes (eg. Victorian stencilling); if it is getting shabby, explore the possibility of having it conserved professionally.
  • Use an unqualified organbuilder.

* * * * *

 
BIOS will be glad to offer further help or advice, perhaps concerning sources such as the British Organ Archive, which you can search online by place/address or organ-builder. You can also consult the National Pipe Organ Register [NPOR] to see if there is information on a particular instrument, or the interim Directory of Organ Builders about the maker. By more traditional methods, general enquirers should in the first instance contact:
 
The British Institute of Organ Studies, 
c/o The Hon.Secretary, 
Lime Tree Cottage, 
39 Church Street, 
Haslingfield, 
Cambridge CB3 7JE 
[Tel/Fax. 01223-872190] 
E-mail
 

Value...

The common law of business balance prohibits paying a little and getting a lot. It can't be done. If you deal with the lowest bidder, it's well to add something for the risk you run. And if you do that you will have enough to pay for something better.
 

Links to: 

Maintenance by Richard Hird  [www.duresme.org.uk]
Last updated 14th June 2005